Once we landed here in Farmington, it was time to go exploring.
We learned there are various ruins and museums in the area, including Chaco Canyon 45 miles south of here.
However since it is on Native American Soil, it is still Closed.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park - Press Here for Information
However, Salmon Ruins had just reopen 1 week before, so off we went in search of it.
This is just an excerpt from Wikipedia
Salmon Ruins is an ancient Chacoan and Pueblo site located
in the northwest corner of New Mexico, USA. Salmon was constructed by migrants
from Chaco Canyon around 1090 CE, with 275 to 300 original rooms spread across
three stories, an elevated tower kiva in its central portion, and a great kiva
in its plaza. Subsequent use by local Middle San Juan people (beginning in the
1120s) resulted in extensive modifications to the original building, with the
reuse of hundreds of rooms, division of many of the original large, Chacoan
rooms into smaller rooms, and emplacement of more than 20 small kivas into
pueblo rooms and plaza areas. The site was occupied by ancient Ancestral
Puebloans until the 1280s, when much of the site was destroyed by fire and
abandoned (Reed 2006b). The pueblo is situated on the north bank of the San
Juan River, just to the west of the modern town of Bloomfield, New Mexico, and
about 45 miles (72 km) north of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. The site was
built on the first alluvial terrace above the San Juan River floodplain.
The ruins of Salmon Pueblo were excavated between 1970 and
1979, under the direction of Cynthia Irwin-Williams of Eastern New Mexico
University in partnership with the San Juan County Museum Association
(Irwin-Williams 2006, p. 17-27). The San Juan Valley Archaeological Program
resulted in the excavation of slightly more than one-third of Salmon's ground
floor rooms. More than 1.5 million artifacts and samples were recovered from
Salmon. In 1980, Irwin-Williams and co-principal investigator Phillip Shelley
wrote, compiled and edited a multivolume, 1,500-page report. The document
fulfilled the reporting requirements for the series of grants under which the
project had been completed but it was not intended for publication. Throughout
the 1980s, Irwin-Williams and Shelley worked on a modified and greatly reduced
manuscript, with the goal of producing a publishable report. This work ended
with the untimely death of Cynthia Irwin-Williams in 1990.
In 2000, Archaeology Southwest (formerly the Center for
Desert Archaeology) President Bill Doelle and staff met with Salmon Executive
Director Larry Baker and forged a multiyear partnership. Archaeology
Southwest's work at Salmon began in 2001 as the Salmon Reinvestment and Research
Program, with archaeologist Paul Reed leading the effort. The research
initiative comprised two primary tasks: first, to condense and edit the
original 1980 Salmon report into a new, published technical report, and second,
to conduct additional, primary research in several targeted areas, with the
goal of producing material for a detailed technical report, as well as a
synthetic volume. The three-volume report, entitled Thirty-Five Years of
Archaeological Research at Salmon Ruins, New Mexico, was published in 2006
(Reed 2006a), followed by the synthetic-summary volume Chaco’s Northern
Prodigies, published in 2008 (Reed 2008a). An additional component of the
Archaeology Southwest effort at Salmon focused on the curation needs of the
massive collection. These needs were partially addressed through a Save
America's Treasures grant for $150,000 awarded in 2002. The curation effort
(repackaging and reboxing artifacts) has continued over the last 10 years.
Salmon Ruins - Press Here for additional information
One of the things I need to remember? Bring an additional lens.
Safe Journeys and Travels
Susan, Tilly, Dakota and me
DaGirls Rv
Remember the 3 W's
